-My sisters and brothers, we are taught in the scriptures that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that those who act in accordance with this fear have a good understanding. Holy and awesome is the name of the Lord. The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that our God is a consuming fire. As the Almighty Creator of all things seen and unseen, it is right to serve our God with fear.
-But I ask you this: how do we reconcile this with our love for the Lord? You know the first commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
-How do we then both love and fear God at the same time? Are these competing commitments that cancel each other out? Let me assure you that this is not the case.
-In fact, the truth is, my friends, that love and fear must always grow together in the life of a Christian.
-There is no true love that is not grounded in fear, and there is no godly fear which is not fulfilled in love.
-The summer after I finished seminary, we went to live with Erin’s grandfather in the mountains of North Carolina. Her grandparents were pioneering Southern Baptist missionaries in Nigeria, Africa, and they had come back to North Carolina to retire. Erin adored her grandparents, and for good reason. They were amazing people – the kind of folks that are rarely seen in this world today. Their love for others was tremendous, and their generosity was known by all around them. But they were good Baptists, and drinking was one thing that they knew to be wrong. (By the way, you do know why…)
-Well, while we were living there that summer, I found a job as a finish carpenter in a new housing development – hanging doors and installing trim. And after a hot day of working with my hands, you know that all I wanted was to sit and enjoy a cold beer. I am a straight-up, blue collar Jersey boy, and I was raised to drink some beer. But I couldn’t do it.
- I pleaded with Erin. I said, “Maybe I could hide a six-pack in the back of the fridge that was in the garage?!” But it wasn’t going to be. Ice tea would have to do. Neither Erin nor I agreed with him. We did not believe that alcohol was absolutely bad. But out of her deep love and respect for her grandfather, Erin would not do anything that would sow seeds of confusion and misunderstanding in her grandfather’s mind.
-This is the same principle that Paul is teaching in his letter to the Corinthians. The context here is very different – eating meals in temples dedicated to greek gods.
-But the principle is the same. The church is to be the community which embodies the love of God. And if the members truly love one another, then they will be careful not to harm each other. Even if one member does not believe that the meat sacrificed to idols is polluted, out of love and respect for the others, that one is to abstain in order not to sow seeds of confusion and doubt.
-Here we see a practical example of how godly love and fear are so closely intertwined.
-True love and fear are always intertwined. You cannot truly love another if you do not also fear the other. This is true in any relationship in our lives.
-To love someone means to cherish them, to honor them. If I truly love my wife, Erin, then I hold her in a sacred kind of awe, careful never to do anything that might cause her harm.
-If I simply say that I love her, but then if in my actions I consistently hurt her – emotionally or physically – then I am a liar and the truth is not in me.
-True love for her causes me to treat her as if she were the most precious, fragile treasure in my world. This is the kind of fear which is intertwined with love.
-It is not that I am afraid of her – though sometimes I am, because she’s a hot headed Irish girl! But that’s not what I mean here! I mean that I fear the great harm that I, in my blindness and my foolishness, could easily cause her if I am careless.
-For those of you with children, this is like the feelings that are brought about by the birth of your first child. I don’t know about you, but for us, the birth of our first-born son gave us an entirely new understanding of what love really is.
-We never knew that we could love someone so dearly, and at the same time be so terribly afraid all of the time.
-For me, before we had children, my emotions could range about this far (hands held up and close together). But after our children came, my emotions are stretched out about this far (hands far out)!
-Now, after the birth of our children, the depth of my love is so much greater now, but so also is my capacity for fear! The more we love another, the more we fear the harm that could befall them. True love and godly fear always grow together in the heart of a Christian.
-In his book, The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis has an amazing passage in which he describes the kind of awe and respect that we rightly should have toward others if we see clearly.
"It is a serious thing," wrote Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk
to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly
tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if
at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each
other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these
overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to
them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships,
all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have
never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these
are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals
whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or
[else] everlasting splendours.”
-When we see clearly with the light of Christ, we stand in awe of the people around us. There are no ordinary people, and no ordinary days.
-All of this is, of course, even more true when it comes to our relationship with God!
-God is to loved and adored. We love God because God first loved us. Forgiveness, healing power, mercy, grace are freely given to us through Jesus Christ.
-But God is also to be feared. Not the groveling kind of fear where we are afraid to be struck by lightning if we happen to spill the blessed wine of the sacrament. God is not capricious in this way, smacking us when we mess up.
-No, it is the loving fear of reverence and awe that develops in our heart when we truly encounter the living God.
-In America, we tend to act pretty chummy toward Jesus, like he’s our best friend, our buddy who hangs out with us at the ball game.
-And in a way, this kind of familiarity is good, I suppose.
-But we tend to forget that this is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. This is the one who speaks with authority, the One who went around tearing evil spirits out of people.
-Those around him were amazed and I can promise you that typically he made them feel very, very uncomfortable.
-We would do well to recover a bit of reverent fear and awe when we speak or think about God. During the Great Thanksgiving, when we sing the Sanctus, it is ancient custom to bow in recognition that we are joining in with something that is way over our heads. The heavenly beings, and all the saints, in some mysterious and profound way are living now in the presence of our Creator and singing this song of praise endlessly. It is our privilege to be allowed to join in for a brief moment.
-By the grace of God, may we be strengthened to grow in true love and godly fear, and may these be expressed in all of our relationships to those around us, and most especially in our relationship with the almighty and everlasting Lord. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment